I have immense respect for people with fit bodies. It tells me that they work hard, are disciplined and can control their mind and mouth, the last of which I’ve never fully mastered. It is no mean feat. It is not easy eating healthy. Don’t agree? Try eating a bowl of raw bean sprouts every morning for breakfast. Why bean sprouts are so good for your weight-loss diet Bean sprouts have been a part of the diet of weight-watchers and fitness enthusiasts for ages because: They are low calorie but nutrient dense and full of fibre which means they fill you up, add a ton of good things to your body but don’t count for much. One cup of bean sprouts is just 100 calories. Bean sprouts are a good source of vitamin B2 that helps boost your metabolism. The high fibre helps ease bowel movements. The Vitamin C in bean sprouts keeps your skin, nails and hair healthy. More Sprouts Recipes to Come Knowing all this makes eating bean sprouts a no-brainer. But it doesn’t make it any easier. So I racked my brain to come up with recipes where I could incorporate these sprouts. I remember making a sprouts stuffed paratha awhile back that everyone really enjoyed. I wanted to add more easy recipes to that list. Thus was born this sprouts kurma and the sprouts dosai, sprouts stir-fry and other sprouts recipes you’re about to see in the coming days. Keep watching. This sprouts kurma is such a delicious, creamy rendition of the sprouts, you’ll have no qualms at all polishing off a cup of this sprouts kurma with rotis or idiyappam or dosai. I promise. I served them with benne kadubu – karnataka style rice dumplings. Oh My, they were such a pair. Also this kurma is so much easier than your regular vegetable kurma because there are no vegetables to cut. Easy and healthy. Win-win. And you managed to down your day’s dose of sprouts in style without gagging. Win-win-win! Try today! Do let me know in the comments if you have your favourite sprouts recipes. I’d love to hear. Continue reading →

You know the feeling when you say your prayers, remove your shoes and socks, look around and decide to leave your clothes on and slowly climb up on the weighing machine all the while imagining the time you ate just pineapple and leaves while the person in the adjacent table ate biryani, the time you braved the dust and traffic and walked to work and reason that these great sacrifices deserve at-least a 1 kilo drop and then look down to find a 200 gram increase. You jump down as if given an electric shock. You gingery put one foot on the machine and as delicately as possible the other foot so as to exert minimum weight, look down now thinking if you had drunk too much water in the morning, if you had finished the toilet business and see the exact same weight you saw earlier. You get down, put on your socks and shoes and walk away thinking “What the fuck!” , “Fine!”, “I don’t care”, “I’ll keep going”, “Life is not fair”, “I’ll never lose weight”, “I hate diet meals”, “What I need is acceptance”, “Round is a shape too”.. You’ll oscillate between disillusionment, self-pity, anger, frustration and biryani. It’s a deeply emotional thing, all of this weight-loss business. Not easy at all. The day you take your weight, you’ll let loose, seek comfort, eat noodles or paruppu sadam or macaroni instead of your diet meal. After the initial bout of frustration and cheating you’ll think back to your routine and realize times when you had eaten out, when you had not pushed yourself as much. You’ll then come up with things you want to change, new diet meals, a more strenuous routine, an extra bit of exercise or a little green tea ritual you want to add. This cycle is normal. Let yourself go through it all. If you have decided to eat only soup for dinner, then here is a soup you’ll love. This leek soup is simple, easy and super quick. I added a small potato to give the soup some body. You can do away with it if you prefer. I paired it with an equally simple honey-mustard sauce grilled chicken. You could serve the soup alongside toasted wheat bread too for a delicious, filling diet-meal. Project 50k Update I’ve not checked my weight since my last weight-checking debacle. It’s been about 10... Continue reading →

Nobody ever lost weight with their mothers around. When I am in the midst of the strictest diet, when I’ve not eaten rice for a week, when I am painfully sipping sugar-less coffee my mother hands me a big plate full of hot off the stove assorted bajjis – onion bajji, potato bajji and vazhakai bajji. She brings me mutton biryani the next day. She thrusts a big dabba full of fried vengaya vathal (onion-rice fritters) for snacking. You’d think she doesn’t want me to ever lose weight, which wouldn’t be inaccurate. In fact she doesn’t register that I am fat. Ah, Mothers. In spite of my mother’s sabotage, I managed to stick to Kelloggs Special K for breakfast and dinner for an entire week. 2-bowls a day, just like Deepika Padukone says. Do you want to know if it worked? If I lost weight? In just a bit.. As part of my project 50k, I am experimenting with different diets and exercises to see what works and what doesn’t and to infuse some variety and interest into my weight-loss journey. I am sharing all those details with you as I know many of you are in the same boat. The Kelloggs special K tastes delicious, slightly sweet and wonderfully crunchy. On the Kelloggs Special K pack, there are clear instructions as to what makes the 2 bowls that Deepika talks about. 30 grams of Kelloggs Special K along with 120 ml of skimmed milk makes one bowl and that is 144 calories. Compare that with 2 idlis+ sambar, 2 dosas + sambar or a serving of upma which all work out to about 300 calories and you are consuming only half of that. 144 calories is super low for a meal and would be fantastic for someone looking to lose weight. It tastes great and is low-calorie. What more could you ask for? Well, let me show you what 30 gm looks like. 30 gm turned out to be just over a 1/4 cup. I am using a 1/2 cup measure in this picture and I have a little over half of it filled. I don’t know about Deepika but a 1/4 cup of cereal is like a baby-portion of cerelac. That’s the amount of food we feed our neighbourhood crow. Sorry, he likes to eat more except on Ammavasai when he likes to act pricey. 30 gm of cereal is simply insufficient for me. On days I’ve worked out, I want to... Continue reading →

Thank you friends for the overwhelming interest and encouragement to project 50k. It is way beyond what I imagined. Project 50k is no longer my personal project. It is a community project. I am dead serious about this project. Let’s do this. Today I am going to help you kick-start your project 50K. Be ready to make some changes in your life. The weight-loss Ideology We are going to take the most old-fashioned route to weight-loss which is simply “burn more than you consume”. Exercise + diet. I am sorry but it’s the only method that works. I wouldn’t recommend crash-diets simply because they’re not sustainable. You are more likely to stick to a reasonable diet in the long run. Diet without exercise is like waiting for a leaking bucket to empty itself when you can grab a mug and pour out water. Without exercise, you will take longer to lose weight. What’s more, you’re more likely to stick to your diet when you’re exercising. Really. When you’ve spent 40 mins huffing and puffing, sweating it out, you will think twice when you see a laddoo. Step 1 In order to burn more than you consume, you need to track everything you burn and everything you consume. This is easiest to do with an app. Just search for a “Calorie counter” app. There are innumerable apps out there that’ll let you log in everything you eat and every step you take. Download one of these. I am using Mynetdiary. Here is a snapshot of my daily log. You can use this app or any other calorie counter app that you like. The idea is to record everything as accurately as you can. Once you set up your app, enter your weight, the target you wish to reach and the timeline, the app will give you a calorie budget for each day. You need to keep within this calorie budget every day. I want to lose 1 kilo every 10 days. So my calorie budget happens to be about 1000 calories. Most of these apps are built with the American audience in mind. So you may not find some of the meals that you are eating. Find the closest substitute on the app or google up the calorie profile of your meal. Remember that these may not be precise but you should be close. I’ve been using this app... Continue reading →

I have been on a weight-loss journey for as long as I remember. To borrow Jagan’s term I am “born-gundu”. Like most fellow gundus, I love food and I hate exercising. I don’t know what people mean when they say they had a great workout. I blame the world. Why do we have coffee shops, ice cream parlours and bajji kadais all over the city but no sundal kadais or treadmill cafes or push-up clubs or table tennis bars? Imagine how different socializing would be with such options. Instead of meeting your friends for coffee you’d have a push-up meeting. You could take your girlfriend out for sundal instead of ice-cream sundae. Not that I am a socializing junkie. Waking up to run, pant and wheeze just doesn’t tickle me. However there’s nothing to fire you up like a sudden rude photograph of you barely fitting the frame or shopping for a dress. They don’t seem to make dresses for your shape anymore. Both of these happened to me a little while back and I realized I had to take action. This time I am making a commitment to myself to not stop until I reach my goal weight. I’ve made too many half-hearted attempts in the past. I know I am not going to lose weight with just taking the stairs and drinking green tea. I am going to exercise for real and stick to a reasonable diet. I am 68 kilos. I need to be 50k. I aim to lose 18 kilos in 6 months. I want to be able to do 15 good-form push ups. I want to fit into the jeans from my college days. There. I am putting it out here. I have no going back. This is my PROJECT 50K. #project50k I know the world is full of aspiring weight losers guiltily eating ice-cream resolving in their mind to exercise it off, turning sideways for selfies and putting off shopping. I am with you sista, bro. I want this project to encourage you to start, sustain your own journey. Sticking to a diet has always been very difficult for me because I am bored easily and I cannot, will not eat foods just because they’re healthy or good for me. They have to taste good. It’s even harder when you are cooking for your family and you don’t want to cook different meals... Continue reading →

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Welcome to Foodbetterbegood!
I am Jayanthi. I love to cook. I am the one who lingers on at a function to have a word with the caterer to ask him for the vathal kuzhambu recipe. I amass recipes and I covet my knives.
I love a good story. I believe everyone does. If you love stories, if you love good food, you are at the right place.
You’ll see snatches of my writing, my DIY attempts and antique love in this space. You’ll see good food and simple recipes and plenty of stories. Foodbetterbegood is my diary.